


through the darkness that you feel

by howveryzoe



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: A Lot of Death, aids tw, like this is just about grief, this is just to compete with will it has zero plot, will beat me but im still posting this, yeah emo teenaged jason in a dark room have fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 19:11:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9456728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howveryzoe/pseuds/howveryzoe
Summary: At fifteen almost sixteen, in the depths of his high school dark room, Jason is getting by





	

**Author's Note:**

> Will and I had a race to finish this and he won but oh well

Mrs.Phelps eventually just gave him a key. She slipped it to him in the palm of his hand as he was leaving one day. He guesses she wasn’t supposed to give it to students so she wanted to be discrete. He’s dealt enough with discreteness in his house to get the hint and nods, pocketing it. 

He wonders if Whizzer had had a teacher like that: someone who gave him somewhere safe to be. The dark room felt like a hiding space, like a cave you’d make out of sofa cushions as a kid or maybe something out of a sci fi film. He always felt like Darth Vader in there with the red light. If he squints he can picture a teenage Whizzer, hair still perfectly coiffed, dipping a photo in the chemicals, carefully shaking the plastic tray back and forth and then hanging it up with care. He always wears a jean jacket on the screen of Jason’s memories. Probably because of the 60s. He wonders if Whizzer had acne. Jason’s face is breaking out like crazy and it annoys him to no end. Whizzer probably had flawless skin, when he thinks about it. Whizzer would. 

He knows things had been hard on him when he came to New York. During the two years when they stayed in touch after the break up he had told him as much. 

“I started failing in my second semester of sophomore year. I freaked out, I though I was gonna disappoint my dad. He'd been so proud I got into NYU, my whole family had given up so much to get me to college. I couldn't tell them or face them. So I dropped out and just disappeared I guess. I still don't even have an associates degree to this day.” Whizzer had said, faking nonchalance and sliding a pawn across the table they met at once a week in Central Park. Jason had always asked him who he had lived with once he dropped out. Whizzer would get distant. Friends, he would say. Are you still friends now, Jason would ask eagerly, and Whizzer only shook his head uncomfortably. 

At eleven and twelve Jason hadn’t understood. At fifteen, nearly sixteen, he did. They’d been lovers. Men that had taken a nineteen year old Whizzer Brown into their homes and beds for a night. Most kids his age weren’t off having sex or anything but they were all old enough to know how those things worked. That’s how it was with men like Whizzer. Men who get sick. Everyone knew how you lived if you were sick in 1984. He wished he could’ve told Whizzer he understood, maybe asked him if he was alright. If the other men had been part of the reason he and Jason’s dad fell apart. But Jason thinks he may have just been at a loss for words anyway. He’s still not good with feelings despite having been raised by a psychiatrist.

Compared to what it was like for Whizzer, with all those boys, Jason had it easy. No one had ever hit him once accept in the way you smack the butt of a little kid misbehaving. But that’s different. All of his parents loved him. But there was a silent hurt to all of them. Things he wasn’t supposed to say aloud. Mendel would be frank with him. That was their bond. But everyone else seemed to pretend things were fine even though everything had fallen apart. He’d caught his mom crying more times then he’d like to admit and all she had done was run her fingers through his curly hair and send him on his way. Cordelia drinks just a bit too much when she’s bitter and no one says anything. Charlotte just seems angry all the time. But he wasn’t allowed to say a thing.

The real pain, though, was the emptiness. Like it would be a friday and he would think “time to get on the 1-04 to head to dad” and then he’d remember. When he’d go to temple on saturday and his tallis still smelled like it’s previous owner. Like his dad’s cologne. Or he’d go to Cordelia and Charlotte’s apartment and hear the sounds of the happy goyische couple living behind the door next to theirs. They’d taken the mezuzah off the door when they’d sold the apartment and it looked weird without it to Jason. He would walk through Central Park sometimes on the weekends and look at the tables of chess players. No smiling tall man in a pink shirt was waiting for him. He doesn’t play chess anymore anyway.

What made him most angry was that his dad hadn’t even tried to live after Whizzer died. He’d just sort of laid around waiting for it to happen. He’d heard him talking to Charlotte when he was in the hospital near the end. Standing in a doorway that he shouldn’t have been standing in.

“I just want it to end. When is it gonna end? I wanna be with him, it took him a few months to die. What’s taking me so long?” Marvin had said quietly while she shook her head and said nothing. To Jason it had been a punch in the gut. His father was supposed to want to live. He wasn’t supposed to give up. Fathers don’t give up. Fathers stay with you no matter what. Whizzer would’ve fought for him. Whizzer wanted to stay alive for him. How dare his own father betray him like this? And then the inevitable thought:

_ I’m not enough for him to stay alive for. _

That was what really kept Jason up at night. The idea that his father frankly didn’t love him enough. He had ran away as fast as he could. Straight into Mendel’s arms who he hadn’t hugged once since turning fourteen. The man had stood there in shock for a bit before returning the embrace. Jason never told him why. He didn’t want to be questioned.

After his dad died was when he had started retreating into the darkroom. Whizzer had left him his camera and he hadn’t used it until then. He was only in his first semester of high school and he turned himself into the “weird camera kid” quickly. Mrs.Phelps had seen him with it and invited him to the darkroom to develop his film for free. He’d loved it. 

There was something religious about the process of developing the photos. Whizzer had taught him how. He’d taken him to the dark room at his work for his eleventh birthday and they went back many times from then on. Watching the photos appear in the glossy paper had been like a magic trick. Even now he can’t help but smile as the black and white picture takes shape. The memory of the man’s hand on his shoulder, his shampoo filling Jason’s nose floods back. He wonders if he turns around and he’ll be there. He thinks if he stays long enough, staring at the paper, he can be eleven again. What would he do then? Say goodbye.

His subject was always Whizzer. Little things reminding Jason of him. While he felt bitterness bubble up at the thought of his father for Whizzer it was only love. Sure, the man had been flawed, but the flaws had never been aimed in Jason’s direction. His photos were empty chess tables in the park. His mom’s crisp green blouse. The door of the old apartment. A boy in school wearing a pink polo. A pretty girl’s smile. A father and son strolling through Columbus Circle. Pastel chalk on the sidewalk. Cordelia and Charlotte kissing when they thought he wasn’t watching. Mendel watching Trina across the room. A decorated shop window. Posters for an AIDS protest plastered in an alleyway, faded and peeling. Two young men holding hands. 

His pictures hadn’t always been good. While Mrs.Phelps had given him total creative freedom she had also given him complete free reign. No guidance or criticism. Often photos would be blurry or double exposed and he would simply have to try again. His angles would be off or the pictures wouldn’t even come up. While Whizzer had been a great teacher it had been over a year since they had gone together. His hands didn’t remember the process completely. He would rage when the photos came out wrong, ripping them up with despair and throwing them into the trash can, gritting his teeth to stop from screaming. Any unfortunate student who would walk in on his display would quickly leave in fear watching him kick the walls and rant to himself under his breath. They didn't understand. He had to make it perfect. 

Mendel began to catch on to his obsession. At first he touched the issue tenderly, never going to far into uncharted waters, but one day when he had just returned home late from a day spent in the city he has broached the subject. 

“You don't have to stay sad Jason.” He told him tentatively. The boy didn't respond. “You're allowed to move on. No one will fault you for moving on.”

“I know.” He said and attempted to enter the house but the short man blocked his entrance. 

“You know there's nothing wrong with mourning. And you can mourn as long as you want. You don't ever have to fully heal if you don't want to. But there comes a point where the pain can't be your whole life. And you have to make that decision to move from it. You don't have to ever leave completely but inevitably you need to make the decision that you want to at least start.” Mendel said, drumming his hands awkwardly on his pants.

“I'm not stuck or something. I'm fine.”

Mendel ran his fingers through his hair and groaned. “Jason, you wear his leather jacket every damn day. You have no friends, you spend all your time just walking around the city! This is ridiculous, no one is saying you have to leave him behind but he can't be your whole life.”

“Who else is gonna remember him huh? No one visited him in the hospital but us! Every one he was ever with just used him and forgot him! Only one who even cared a little was Dad and we sure know how that turned out!” Jason spat at the man. He stepped to the side, unblocking the doorway, in shock. “I can't let people forget him. You wouldn't understand. You never do anything. All you can do is talk. Talk like the dumb nebbish old man you are.” 

Mendel looked hurt but Jason hadn't cared and had simply stormed into the house. 

His photos became better from then on. He figured out the right angles and how to long to let things dry. The process came back to him like the man himself was guiding him, finger on finger. 

By now it's like muscle memory. He doesn't even have to think about it. He wonders if he's as good a photographer as Whizzer was. He doesn't think so. The man had an eye for things he'll never have. Even just taking their family photos was like art for him. Plus he'd had a color darkroom. Pitch black. Jason didn't have that skill even now. He has most of Whizzer’s photos. The box he'd kept at Marvin’s house and the pictures he'd taken for them that first meeting and all the photos he'd given him in life are stored under Jason’s bed. Still he wishes he could have them all. All the photos given to other families and magazines. Sure the owners would admire them but they wouldn't know the man squinting behind the camera. They didn't need them like Jason. 

Whizzer’s leather jacket smells like the dark room now, chemicals and sweat. It's beat up, the leather is cracked, and the sleeves are stained. Whizzer would probably have lost his shit if he could see it. If there was one thing Whizzer cared about it was appearances. But the jacket was warm and it made Jason feel safe. And there was something about it that made kids stay away from him that he liked. He'd rather be left alone then deal with them and their questions. 

He'd talked to Heather Levin once. She was nice, sweet, and she liked him, he thought. But soon her questions began to pry as curiosity got the best of her. Lots of “I mean you know what they say about you but it can't be true right?” Jason had merely shrugged. No energy to confirm or deny. He was no social butterfly, it was easy to get by without company. She'd still say hi to him sometimes. She'd invited him to go to a New Year's party with him. He'd had the urge to ask her “why do you want me to go if you think I have fucking AIDS?” But he'd bit his tongue and thanked her.

If he'd gone he might have kissed her, he thought. He could've shown her his pictures and she would've told him about her favorite books. It may have been nice. Instead he had stayed at home, trying to get drunk off of Manischewitz given him by Mendel as a peace offering. But the taste was too sweet and the alcohol too smelly and he had simply stayed up watching the numbers tick by on his new digital watch. 

Trina didn't attempt to hide her worry but his wrath at any questions was enough to keep her away. He'd swat his hand at her face or scream if she got too close.

“He's so much like his father. I don't know how to handle him.” She had told Mendel softly when she thought Jason couldn't hear. He had raged at himself for months in response. Biting his dry lips until they bled. 

Eventually they'd taken him to see a psychiatrist for real this time. A distant colleague of Mendel’s and he'd asked Jason a lot of questions and taken a lot of notes. He'd prescribed him with a bunch of antidepressants that he'd taken for a while. But they made him too drowsy and nauseous and messed up his sleep cycle. He couldn't take good photos with them. He ended up dumping them in the toilet in the middle of the night. No one seemed to want to notice.

Today in the dark room it was special. The picture he was developing was one of his favorites. It showed an afternoon at Union Square. The whole center in a flurry of life. Artists and homeless people and students and couples and tourists all moving about. Even in black and white it seemed colorful. He had taken a motion shot which he had never done successfully and was immensely proud. It had to come out perfect. Even more so it was birthday gift. 

The receiver wouldn't be able to physically get it. And Jason didn't believe in the afterlife or ghosts or even God for that matter. (Once he had ignored his plea for Whizzer’s life religion was basically forgotten). But maybe he thought there was something. Some form of after or looking down. Not a concrete afterlife but maybe an acknowledgment of grief. That if he let the man know he was still thinking of him maybe he was still there. Just a little. A fading specter at best but at least someone with Jason. 

He's not sure if he's lonely exactly. Sometimes he feels perfectly content which is the weirdest part. Like his natural state is in this dark room. He doesn't need light or food or friends. He feels more comfortable here than at parties with middle school friends when he'd just hugged the wall and ate chips. Even more comfortable when Mendel would sit with him trying to repair a bond that had been broken in a hospital room nearly three years ago. He's as happy here as he can be. Independent and alone with his thoughts and his photos. 

Whizzer would've been 35 today. He remembers his 31st birthday. He and Jason had spent it together in a diner near Times Square. Cheesy, Whizzer had called it, but it was the first place he had eaten when he came to New York. It was a tradition he told him, laughing and scanning the plastic menu. They'd eaten more than he'd ever seen Whizzer eat. Milkshakes and burgers and onion rings and pie. Jason should've wondered why no one was there besides him. But at 11 almost 12 he couldn't put that together. He had told his mom he was at library and she was frazzled and too busy with the wedding preparations to question it. Whizzer had ruffled his hair and smiled so brightly, brighter than he had ever smiled with Marvin before the break up. 

“You're growing up so well kid.” He told him.

“It's your birthday Whizzer.” Jason said, dipping his onion ring in sauce.

“Yeah but I'm just thinking. You're gonna be such a great man. Make us all proud.” A saying like that would usually make Jason annoyed or embarrassed but from Whizzer it only caused a blush of pride and a smile on his face.

“I wanna be just like you.” Jason said it out of impulse, just because he knew it would make Whizzer smile. But he found a truth in it. Whizzer had looked shocked for a second, his mouth opening and closing. Then he shook his head as if Jason had said something funny.

“I love you kid.” He told him frankly. And Jason felt the sentiment well up in him. If he'd examined it he would've recognized they were two lonely people, needing some form of emotional intimacy. Him missing his lover, Jason his father. That they were desperate to connect to fill that hole. But instead he had just let the love fill him up.

That was the first time he had ever said that to him. 

Whizzer’s last birthday had been spent with all of them as it had fallen after he got back together with Marvin but before he got sick. It had been a big dinner with Cordelia making angel food cake and music playing. It had been nice but Jason held the memory of the prior birthday closer. Perhaps because it had been just the two of them. He didn't tell his dad it even happened until after Whizzer had died. He had cried when he told him. But Jason doesn't want to think about that.

It wasn't his dad’s fault. He knew that logically. Whizzer got sick because Whizzer got sick. It had nothing to do with his dad or how he'd treated him. But some part of Jason blames him. Maybe because it's easier to do so. They'd reconciled before he had died officially. He'd held Marvin’s hand in the hospital though he didn't think to pray for his salvation. He was too smart for that. Yet he had sobbed when he'd died. Felt immobile with grief. But there was a small, niggling feeling of anger. Of blame. 

But today isn’t for things like that. Today is for Jason to finish developing his photo, which had almost finished drying, and then for him to take the D train into Brooklyn to Washington Cemetery. It’s a little late after school, almost an hour. He’ll tuck the photo into his jacket, let it rub against the worn brown leather and let the rocking of the train calm his aching heart. They’d buried Whizzer there, in that old Jewish cemetery bordering Bay Parkway. It was their family cemetery, his mom had told him, where they all would be buried. Marvin’s family had a plot, which meant that when he went he had to pass his dad’s grave too. Right next to Whizzer’s.

It had been easier last year, the grave didn’t have a tombstone yet. But now that two years have passed since his dad died the headstone had been erected. And he’ll have to look at it, if he can get enough courage even put a stone on it. But no, he’ll keep walking through the cold dead leaves and the hard ground that’s just beginning to thaw. He will place the photo at the granite headstones foot and let the dirty Brooklyn air fill his lungs. Everything on Bay Parkway looks grey and dirty and he can’t imagine Whizzer would’ve wanted to be buried here. He’d have wanted some place like where he grew up, sunny and lush and overgrown. But that’s alright. It’s alright, Jason will think as his knees give way and he sobs once again, alone in the dirty grass. He will be fine everything is fine.

He unclips the photo from the line, takes one look at the red-lit room, and heads for the heavy door.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I didn't edit this


End file.
